중앙데일리

A long history of abusing power

Theater director Lee Youn-taek used fear to control his victims

Mar 20,2018

Forcing women to massage his groin, touching their bodies, stripping them naked in the pretense of discipline, raping them and leaving them no choice but to abort the pregnancy that followed - these are the allegations raised by a total of 16 female members of the Street Theatre Troupe against director Lee Youn-taek.

The arts and entertainment industry has been the center of Korea’s recent Me Too movement, with new victims of sexual misconduct coming forward nearly daily with testimonies of how they were sexually harassed in the past by some of the most well-known names in the business. From actors and movie directors to poets, the ongoing streak of accusations has revealed some of the darkest and dirtiest secrets from all corners of the arts and entertainment world.

Although it’s hard to say whether one incident is worse than the other, the revelations surrounding playwright Lee were undeniably the biggest story to come from the theater world in the new year. The stories not only lit a fuse to what would become an explosion of similar stories in the news, its impact was also felt due to the sheer number of victims who came forward.

The first testimony came on Feb. 14 from Kim Su-hee, leader of a theater group named Miin, who posted an account of a night when Lee pulled her hands near his genitals some 10 years ago. Many others followed with their own stories, each one equally as horrifying as the next.

During a press conference on Feb. 19, Lee made a formal apology. He stated that his sexual misconduct was the result of “a horrible misdeed that has been habitually performed over the last 18 years.” The troupe disbanded on the same day, and Lee was summoned by the Seoul Metropolitan Police Agency on March 17 and 18 to answer questions. When reporters asked him whether he had seen the victims’ testimonies on Sunday, Lee answered, “I don’t know about them.”

The question is, how did something so horrendous and illegal go on for 18 years?

The JoongAng Sunday, an affiliate of the Korea JoongAng Daily, interviewed three actors who were members of the theater troupe, and two people in the theater industry well acquainted with Lee, all of whom wished to remain anonymous. The following are excerpts from the interview which gives insight into how Lee’s misdeeds went forgiven for all these years.

Different and special

Each of the five people interviewed had something to say about Lee, but when it came to his personal life, everyone agreed that his mother “thought very highly of him.”

Lee was born in 1952, and had a father who would only come home once a month because of his job as a traveling merchant. His mother was left to take care of Lee all on her own, while working to make ends meet as a street vendor at a local market.

His mother was an outgoing and domineering person, according to those interviewed, but always referred to her son as doryeonnim, or little master in Korean, and spoke to him as if he were her senior. “You are different from others” was her favorite line to tell her son. If there was pork served at a dinner table - considered to be a cheap meat compared to the more costly and tasty beef - she would say, “Get this away from the table. My son only deserves beef.”

Lee recorded an instance he remembers from his childhood in his autobiography, the title of which translates to “It’s Life Eventually,” of his mother publicly displaying her affection for her son.

“When I was three or four, I went to the market with my mother and somebody came up to me to stroke my head saying, ‘He’s such a handsome boy.’ My mother slapped the person’s hands, telling them that they had ‘filthy hands’ and shooed them away,” wrote Lee.

“Lee had this very elitist view of himself, that he was above others,” said one of the actors. “When we would go to him to confront him about his ‘bad behavior,’ he would bow his head down [apologizing] one moment, and then say, ‘I’m sorry, but I’m special. So let me off please.’”

Selfish to his core

Lee was known for his eloquence, so much so that some reporters would say that they could write an entire article just by writing down what he says. Although one’s eloquence is often attributed to their choice of vocabulary, his logic was straight and to the point as well. “He was so good with his words that he would play with people’s minds very easily,” said one of the theater insiders.

Another talent Lee had was managing money. Aside from founding the Street Theatre Troupe in 1986, Lee also ran numerous other troupes and theaters across the country, including the Miryang Theater Village, the Gimhae Doyo Creative Studio, the Seoul 30Studio and the Busan Gamagol Theater. Even though many of them received funds from their regional governments, it was still a big feat for someone who had made a career out of acting, not management.

The reason he could run so many theaters and still make it work was because he would not hesitate to take part in something that was worth even the smallest amount, according to two of the actors. Members of the troupe were not only actors, but also worked as staff at events, and were a cheap labor force that was ready at his command. The members of the troupes were forced to make everything that was related to the plays, including stage props and costumes, as well as the promotion posters.

“The troupe was divided into three main groups that were always busy, the performance team, practice team and event [organizing] team,” said a member of the troupe. “We had to practice our performance in the day and make the stage at night. We were exhausted by the time we went to sleep.”

Despite the fact that the work was too demanding, all the members were actually happy to be a part of the troupe, and happy to be working for a small return. “Other theater troupes only pay you when you’ve been on stage. But we felt proud of the name value that came with ‘Street Theatre Troupe,’ as well as the fact we had a steady income - even though it was small,” said one of the actors.

After starting his troupe in Busan in 1986, Lee came to Seoul in the early 1990s with his experimental style of theater. The members were then divided into the Busan group and Seoul group. Lee would often try to aggravate competition between the two groups by calling members of both troupes “dumb” or “rude.”

Although members of Lee’s troupe were happy to work under their teacher despite the hardship, Lee refused to help push any of them towards stardom. “Lee often said, ‘Actors always leave when they get big,’” said one of the insiders. “He was selfish to his core.”

Hell in disguise

In 1999, Lee traveled south to Miryang, South Gyeongsang, where he sought to build a small community of himself and 30 other members from his troupe inside a shut-down school. There, they would fix up the abandoned building and make it a place for everyone to not only practice, but also to eat and live in.

They knocked down the walls between two classrooms to make a big studio, and use the remains of the faculty dormitory and the janitor’s room to sleep in. Every step of the process of creating a work, from writing to practicing and performing, was conducted inside the walls of the school.

“One’s life should not be separated from one’s performance,” was Lee’s theatrical philosophy. And it seemed to work, as his pieces were praised by people all over the theater community, and the Miryang Village was praised as an ideal theater community.

But now that the secret’s out, it turns out it that it wasn’t a creative haven or the ideal performance space, but instead hell in disguise.

“Because we lived by ourselves, secluded from everyone else,” said an actor who was interviewed, “Lee was like a king that oversaw everything we did.”

According to the members, Lee frequently pushed himself onto female members of the troupe asking for massages, saying, “I might die at night if you don’t take care of me.”

“We thought back then that it was natural to give him a massage, because he had been shouting at us all day, trying to teach us,” said another actor.

Even though some of the actors in Miryang were harassed, they had either grown numb to the sexual crimes that were happening, or just turned a blind eye in order to save themselves from losing their jobs.

“If there was someone who went into [Lee’s] room and came out crying, we would just think, ‘The old man’s gotten his way again,’” said one of the actors. “We were actually worried what might happen if word got out and Lee’s family found out.”

It wasn’t until 2012 that the idea of giving Lee a massage was posed as a problem inside the small community. Lee bowed his head to some of the victims and apologized to them, saying that he would “never do it again.”

But that was not the end of it. His massages were then turned into what the members called “vocal training.” Lee would call female members of the troupe into a room alone with him, and then touch them inside their underwear. One of the victims testified that she was stripped naked inside a makeup room just before a performance, while she was on her period.

“I agree to a certain point that his methods really did help [us] find our voices in a way. His method of surprising our bodies really allowed us to have more sincere voices. But if it was training, it should have been done in public, not while we were alone in the dressing room. It was downright harassment,” said one of the actors.

According to another actor interviewed, Lee constantly threatened the members of his troupes so that they would stay under his command, often saying, “You think you can make it out of here?”

“It was beyond scary that it would be hell if we left, almost like we were brainwashed. It was unimaginable that we would share the sexual misconduct we faced if we did not want to leave the theater world.”